Does Spiritual Seeking and Practice Just Keep Us Asleep?

[@maryk.3468]

Hi Dr. DiLullo, my copy of Awake arrived today. I’ve never been as excited and enthusiastic about a book as I am about Awake, because I deeply know that it’s my turn…. My turn to live a life full of spontaneity, wonder, freedom and unbroken peace. My turn to wake up from separation and end the suffering!!!! I’m all in!!!!!

[@SimplyAlwaysAwake]

Woohoo! Enjoy the trip 🎉

[@lynlavalight]

Beautiful!

[@jennifersantos3918]

@@maryk.3468 Love this! 🥰

[@yasminel-hakim4348]

practice suchness with no delay 🙏❤️🙏❤️🙏❤️🙏❤️🙏

[@JAdzic-qv7vj]

Angelo at this rate you will break my phone! 23 SAW tabs open and counting (And I carry your book like a clutch purse everywhere I go). I love suchness! Best video ending quote ever. ♡♡♡♡

[@hansenmarc]

7:27 Thank you for clarifying the distinction between seeking prior to the initial shift versus exploring and deepening the realization afterwards. This is precisely the question that’s been on my mind for a while now.

[@renko9067]

I thought the exact same thing 😊

[@EARTOEARTOEARTOEAR]

Hey Angelo. For the past months awakening put me in a pressure cooker. All coping mechanisms stripped away, especially mental gymnastics that I was previously indulging at olympic skill level. Nowhere to hide anymore from the 23 years of repressed material. Restlessness, anxiety, confusion and brute force raw dogging addiction, there was nowhere to run anymore. After months of getting decimated, the mind finally succumed to endless torture. The pain body finally got to burst open and release its accumulated disgust, disdain and helplessness. Pretty unbelievable to see what had been stuffed away all that time- no wonder the organism desperately passified itself with endless mental activity. Funny how 'this' lines itself up to push you past your breaking point, now I can see what you mean with the gorilla reverence :) You can run and run, but at some point ya just can't hide anymore. That's ok. Let it overtake. You can't swim but you can drown.

[@SimplyAlwaysAwake]

Thanks for sharing! This is a better way. Just takes a bit of adjustment 😊

[@Buddhishgirl]

I understand you went through a lot of suffering, but you can be grateful to have come to see all this at such a young age! This is grace. Good for you.

[@EARTOEARTOEARTOEAR]

Yeah totally agree, pure grace. It was all inevitable and it had to unfold as such to wake me up!

[@Twobytee]

@@EARTOEARTOEARTOEARhey I feel like I've been going through something similar the past few months but don't know how to "surrender" or "drown" as you called it. How did you surrender? Essentially all of my old coping mechanisms have been stripped and I have no where to go anymore. The mind is tricky

[@EARTOEARTOEARTOEAR]

For me there was a ton of doubt, resistance and struggle. Nothing like surrender. Allow it to be there, induldge in thought, notice how inherently uncomfortable it is. Let yourself struggle, let the mind grasp, let it be frustrated about not being able to let go. Do this and don't move, don't go anywhere. Trust that suffering is the path and make way to resistance! Keep on struggling, you are right where you are ought to be!

[@ravenofthewild]

Thank you for that reading by Dzogen. Stunning in it's clarity. 🙏💞

[@oneness1976]

That's why I thought your very best video was the one with that black backdrop. Just this was a powerful message to me. When I see my mind going crazy, this backdrop comes back into my mind. Beautiful video and I really like that new format!

[@georgesonm1774]

Which video do you mean? Do you have a link?

[@oneness1976]

​@@georgesonm1774 no I'm sorry, it's been a while

[@sethgabel7995]

Is it the “one pointed approach” one? That one awakened me. Had an amazing background that elicited non-duality.

[@oneness1976]

@@sethgabel7995 It was a pitch black backdrop

[@Lulubear0304]

The Heart Sutra, Xin Xin Ming , and now this reading… whenever you have read the ancient texts, it becomes so still, light and undeniable. Pure 🙏🏽💜

[@youarewhatyourelookingfor4496]

10:38 Here iIt’s happening in the taint 🙃😋 (That was a hilarious interview btw) I’m so grateful for you. Spot on, all that. There have been a few peak experiences here, including the “there’s only 1 of us here” one followed by hysterical laughter, but…..the last 5 years esp, (been doing all this for 10 years) there is still tons of mind identification, and the subsequent suffering there in. This mind is so sneaky. I can see how it works and yet I still fall in. It’s driving me around and I feel quite powerless. I meditate and pray and yada yada but still I’m driven by mind. Where’d my awakening go? My programming: Mind: You’re awake now aren’t you? A: yes Mind: well there ya go. Me: I still feel like a separate self. Mind: yea but that’s because no one likes you. Need evidence? Me: no thanks I’m good And on and on. I hope I don’t look as schizophrenic as I feel and probably sound. How my mind sounds all the time. I am not the mind, I’m awareness OF the mind. The mind isn’t you but it’s also not not you. You are awareness and everything that appears in your awareness. But I am not the body or mind. You are those too but that’s not you. I’m so apathetic, anxious and depressed. Well, “you’re” not, you’re the awareness of those. Well it feels real. Feelings are emptiness, and don’t forget, hell and eternal torture is waiting for you when you die. Catholic school was right. Even if it wasn’t, I am god and since I’m imagining those things that’s where I’ll go because I’m creating all of it. It’s all me so since I’m dreaming this I’ll dream myself into a different version of hell next. (Terrifying 🥺) I am god but I’m not actually like GOD, GOD. I am nothing and no thing but I am also everything, AND, neither of these because I am beyond mind. blah blah blah, nonstop, 24/7. If I didn’t work in mental health I’d hospitalize myself. Sorry for the rant. 🙄 I got going. And off it goes in the head: Angelo will understand because he knows there’s no free will., only the illusion of free will. You couldn’t have not said all this. (A wave of fear and anxiety) Remember, the you you think you are doesn’t exist, only I exist and I am you, just not the personality, sense of separate self, or the body / mind, although those are also me, they’r not me. Only awareness is real and true, appearances are not. They’re real unto themselves but they’re not truth. It’s a basket of crazy in here. I hope one day before death of the physical body the crazy train stops to let me off or out or whatever. It’s been a really lame ride for a very long time. I want off. “Who wants off? There is no you that wants off. You were never really in anyway…..” and off it goes 😵‍💫🤮🥴😖😤🤡

[@hansenmarc]

Those are a whole lot of thoughts! What is it like when you ignore or don’t believe the thoughts and turn attention back to sensory experience?

[@youarewhatyourelookingfor4496]

@@hansenmarc right? It’s not stop damn near. What you’re referring to is what’s been being practiced. nothing is happening AS awareness, IN awareness the whole shit train is happening. And pretty and beautiful things too of course. Sigh. I’m ready to give up, which is hear is good. Exhaust the seeker energy sone say. Failure is success here etc. I’ve been in give up mode many times in the last 10 years tho and it’s usually hours later I’m consuming content or trying to get somewhere other than here. 😂 As if right? It’s impossible to anywhere but where I am. Regarding sensation, I rarely know what I’m feeling unless it’s extreme. I honestly don’t know how to feel, what I’m feeling or why. I know pain, rage, grief and a few other horrendous sensations. The last 10 years has got a small handfu, like 4 I can cant, of extremely pleasant experiences, but mostly it’s just hell. Death is a heavenly messenger said Buddha. I concur. I’m closer everyday so that’s nice. lol

[@jennifersantos3918]

The Beginningless Beginning! Sounds like a good poem! I like the words on the screen. Thank you. 🥰

[@bridietulloch1520]

The practice does sometimes fall away by itself. The seeking energy and the practising does fall away on its own naturally. It’s like the meditating merges into a constant state of meditation and to be honest I felt this happening on its own without anyone deciding not to meditate anymore. Life becomes very simple and flows naturally without effort.

[@meditationamsterdam]

Thanks Angelo!

[@jimvega4749]

Beautiful talk Angelo! You're the real deal! ❤

[@oneom8158]

So brilliantly articulated Angel o. Not the easiest task.... Letting life live itself as me, without me, naturally, and the whole eternity unfolds its endless nature at one's feet, paving the way on the shores of this no man's land.

[@Robert85364]

Thank you angelo, this video was really needed, to me it's really eye opening. I think i really need to watch those playlist you sometimes point to, "before" I try to form any thoughts/understanding on any of this (that's about the point).

[@Robert85364]

It seems incredible to me that just a "few weeks" ago I could clearly see that everything I think is a thought, that "I/not-I" were as true as "Santa Claus", it was all so clear... and boom, here I am again asking questions and try to understand things. Even on what I think I saw, which I call "glimpse"... pretty slippery. So easy to "believe" to "thoughts", especially the "enlightened thoughts". That first shift, right

[@ptanji]

Golden!! Beautiful my friend ❤

[@FredLeahy]

Let it play out! Good advice for riding the merry-go-round. 🚀🚀🚀

[@richardsnyder6413]

Thanks 🙏 friend

[@theonemind]

Very accurate 🙏🏼 … and Joe the bus driver in NY still needs the placebo of the spiritual path to awaken the I-consciousness the fact “I am that”. 🙏🏼❤️

[@JesusChrist-vp4qk]

the editing just keeps getting better Angelo

[@dwaynethiels4382]

Wow Angelo another amazing gem!! I have been listening to you for many years now and have to let you know that you have been the most influential guide in my life. Thank you with all my heart for being an authentic source of love and truth! I am so grateful to have been a student of this path less path 🙏 Keep it Up❤

[@renko9067]

Another amazing video. Thanks. I'm laughing inside when I tell life stories these days, like I'm the 🌎's biggest bullshitter, but we have to do it. I mean, try putting "There is no time" in the date box on your tax return.

[@alphonsewilliams9878]

Like others, I’ve heard it said that because you can’t cause awakening spiritual practice is not only a waste of time but that it reinforces the dualistic state. At first, I found the logic of this indisputable and even disturbing. Had I, through spiritual study and practice, been preventing the thing I wanted most? Then it occurred to me that saying awakening cannot be caused is like saying that you can’t force someone to fall in love with you. The logic of that is also indisputable. But does that mean that you should give up looking? In this analogy spiritual study and practice are the equivalent of dating. Neither guarantee that you’ll find what you’re seeking. But they do favour your odds over just staying at home hoping that your soul mate magically appears at your front door (the analogy’s equivalent of a sudden awakening).

[@babblebapp9887]

dang you're getting better at talking about this Angelo

[@Schneebs]

I have found I often do not actually listen when others speak. I hear the first statement they make, and my mind takes it and runs with it and next thing I know I'm completely in my head about some story.

[@christianewoltersmd]

admittedly i am tired atm of listening, but...I just don't get it what you are talking about and I am usually pretty able to follow things here. But it is good to hear that practice becomes something else...that was good.

[@Buddhishgirl]

It is funny to remember that when I first listened to you, it sounded very abstract and now you're speaking and everything you are saying is clear as day.😊

[@cheriemiller669]

Beautiful as always❤

[@Velodan1]

Angelo, This was a good one. Brought me right back to no place to go to. 😊

[@katehiggins9940]

after years of reading everything and thinking about all of this to the point of extreme exhaustion, the last month has felt very quiet and I can’t even grab thoughts about this anymore. Things that used to be riveting to the mind now I just give up on. Essentially I’m just saying that the thoughts don’t arise as much. but I can feel myself going oh no oh no if I can’t think about this then I won’t be able to know what it is so it feels like a little bit of holding on because I don’t want to miss it. Lol. And sometimes it feels like uncomfortable to not be tracking, watching. But I think that’s just self or ego feeling like it has to talk itself I think itself into existence otherwise otherwise nobody will be in charge.

[@SimplyAlwaysAwake]

Awesome

[@thisawareness2342]

This is great... exposing 'spiritual insight' beliefs that seemed insightful and profound etc to ME but are still more thoughts. Thanks Angelo 🩷💞🩷

[@ww9519]

In the light of awareness all seems to have a quality of a joyous play. Still there is a busy mind with its habits and routines. For me, one of the breakthroughs has been recognition that there is nothing wrong with that, because there always is this ageless and pure awareness operating and seeing all that. And I also find it extremely useful always for the body-mind to have an additional inner "agent"-witness that quite mechanically in the background labels emotions and feelings so that a non-judgemental discernment develops leading to the integration of the hurt and fragmented body-mind. It took me only thirty some years to come up with this solution, but hey - who counts years. right? Of course the "witness" is still part of the mind but the ageless awareness provides the integrating power of love.

[@RossSchladt]

Hi Angelo, i had an expirence on ketamine where I felt at one with the universe, the trees, the sky. It felt so vivid. I have had ego death before but this was different. I felt i understood a truth, had experienced it. Im wondering if this counts as awakening?

[@MelFinehout]

So, where I find myself is this: I inquire. I sort of “breakthrough“ and I see the ineffable actuality. And just as soon as the mind goes still, it has its attention drawn to the permeating stillness. Then, it proceeds to explain what it is seeing. And this goes on for seconds or minutes. Suddenly, I realize that “that isn’t happening!“ and neither is this! And the stillness returns. Then the mind latches onto it and the cycle continues . My question is, is there something else I should be doing? Or do I just need to keep on realizing that the apparent portrayal of reality isn’t happening, and seeing what is just being. Or, should I be doing something to prevent or attempt to prevent this cycle in the first place?

[@SimplyAlwaysAwake]

I think that’s great work. If done emotional fixation shows itself, work with that otherwise this course will continue to clarify itself

[@MelFinehout]

@@SimplyAlwaysAwake thanks.

[@eric-humanappliance]

Is this the paradox of the gateless gate? The effort to de-frame one's held views is a practice that takes time and focused effort, but is ultimately a relaxation. Like yoga, you find your edge and gently push on it, challenge it. Over time, one's rigid views soften and give way. Eventually one has a breakthrough moment and the thought-identified identity evaporates. After that shift you look back and realize you haven't gone anywhere and that it was here all along. But one's held views were clouding it.

[@iamtheiamweareallone]

I’ve been in limbo for decades. I died …numerous times. I’ll spare you all the ways. Then reality unraveled after trying to figure out what was happening. I just want to understand how I am here now. Is there anywhere else ? I always ended up just now here. Same name as my earliest memory but entire world has shifted so many times to different entire worlds. Was a grey alien for a few years. On a ship …still same name. 😂

[@kknkkknk1]

Angelo, how does one know they had a shift? I dont take myself to be the thoughts. Is the shift very drastic in all cases?

[@taytay6529]

The energy that im usung to question must be why I feel so tired and I can’t grip anything it’s like life is flashing before my eyes I can see the thoughts in the moment but my tendencies try to kick in and I do still see feel the same way but the light I can’t escape it like it’s pulling me and I feel so blessed I just don’t kno why

[@earth9544]

"You're putting yourself asleep in order to stay awake" -UG Krishnamurti on meditation

[@Mateusz-r3k]

I did

[@TheHuskySanctuary]

What is the first shift? How do you know it happened?

[@thehappyfellow5500]

Hey Angelo. You maybe got this question before with you working in the medical field, do you think awakening should be studied? What would the changes in brainwaves be? Even more insane if there was no change. All interesting stuff for an unawakened mind like mine😅. Are you still interested in these sorts of questions?

[@SimplyAlwaysAwake]

People are already studying it

[@tomorrowneverknows248]

Zen master Baoche of Mt. Mayu was fanning himself. A monk approached and said, "Master, the nature of wind is permanent and there is no place it does not reach. Why, then, do you fan yourself?" " Although you understand that the nature of the wind is permanent," Baoche replied, "you do not understand the meaning of its reaching everywhere." " What is the meaning of its reaching everywhere?" asked the monk again. The master just kept fanning himself.

[@SimplyAlwaysAwake]

Not bad tho I would have fanned the monk at that point 🕳️

[@tomorrowneverknows248]

@@SimplyAlwaysAwake Fanning the monks is all you do on this channel 😂... it's all grandmotherly kindness.

[@BridgesOnBikes]

Angelo, I’m a relatively newer viewer and I love your content very much, but the one thing that I seem to get with your content more than any other mindfulness teacher, is that your content seems to inevitably make me turn it off and start formally practicing. 😂 It’s ok though, I always finish the video later.

[@SplitMind.]

Everything in the relative, every desire that turns the wheel, from pursuit of money, power, fame, and enlightenment, keeps us imprisoned within seemingly ambitious and relentless mind-identification. Funny thing is that once we begin to see through the cracks and realize the folly, the game intensifies, for every living thing just wants to survive… exist, apart from. There is nothing more compelling and liberating than the absence of needs. Wow! True freedom. In the beginning the cracks will open and seal up again, seemingly stronger! We may adopt a thirst to wake the fuck up!! And so become lost again in mad pursuit. But don’t sweat it! After all it’s just a game!! And do we not seek roller coasters and scary movies? Buckle up on this amazing ride of your life!!! ❤

[@lynnhunter4493]

🙏🙏🙏

[@jimvega4749]

It's about clearing the weeds, so you can see your true nature

[@TheMadnessOfMeMyselfAndI]

Hi angelo ...of topic to the video but i wanted to ask you something, so iv been following a lady that has recently woke up in this way, she was a vegan and considered healthy eater for 40 years.. she always had health issues and was constantly using food to try and heal, so to her surprise now she's gone through toys and dropped the ego mind she found her body naturally going towards meat, it only wanted meat, so that's what's she has eaten for 2 weeks and she's feeling incredible, when she thinks of her old food her stomach instantly reacts and she just knows absolutely not. The body does not want grains or any of the other things, have you found anything like this with yourself or others, that the body knows what it wants ro eat to keep it good? Thankyou again, love you

[@TheMadnessOfMeMyselfAndI]

@facsimile-io3dd thanks..yes iv asked a few that have experienced non duality now and they are all eating meat, this just had me curious and has finally ended my internal battle of if i should be eating meat or not, so much info out there it can really confuse us on what is best to help heal and keep the body good..even tho my intuition knew, I guess there was a little doubt from all that info thanks

[@Buddhishgirl]

Angelo, I have been curious about something : can you still get frustrated or annoyed at times? Even though it would sound nice to hear that it is possible to never be frustrated again 😂, I promise I am not asking this to compare myself to you or in hope you would say yes so I would feel better about the fact that I am still getting annoyed or anything like that, but really just curious. 😊

[@_swordfern]

Angelo I bet you you could get a big ol' long beard growin'.

[@kubixis4786]

Hey, I found the video helpful, but I found the constant shifts to other videos of nature or stuff to be distracting. I often get a kind of meditative state when I listen and watch you usually, but with the random videos it just pulled me out of that.

[@zerkton2648]

@13:37 what IS really there? What IS at stake? I intuit everything is at stake. And that same everything is what’s daunting and what’s really there that I can’t apparently see.

[@filipsigur6179]

I laughed when I realized that spirituality (and practices like meditation) is a practice which's sole purpose is to end itself. It's suicidal xD

[@filipsigur6179]

@@Ariel-x1x Well yeah, those things only exist inside the thinker so..

[@alfreddifeo9642]

🙏❤☮

[@Luthiart]

Before enlightenment: chop wood, carry water... After enlightenment: chop wood, carry water.

[@lauragibson777]

💖🙏

[@JohnDoeBand1]

Can a person have a first shift without realizing it?

[@SimplyAlwaysAwake]

Wh at sometimes happens is they have a shift and know it but misinterpret what happened

[@JohnDoeBand1]

@@SimplyAlwaysAwake To me it feels like a doer exists, but like it exists before my thoughts, emotions, experiences and actions. I have found profound spiritual growth by the constant practice of avoiding the temptation to "fix my thoughts/experiences" but I go back-and-forth on whether enlightenment is something I even care about. Whether curiosity or something else, I keep finding myself drawn to your channel

[@Noora11_3]

​@@SimplyAlwaysAwakeHello Angelo. I've been listening to you for a while and you have been the one who's helped make sense of this more than anyone else. Thank you for your work. I hears or read someone say somewhere than awakening is/can be like a feeling/sensation/experience of feeling very, very small, and very, very large, both at the same time... Is that true? Do you know anything about this? I was very sick once when i was 10 or 11, had high fever, and remember being "out of it" or "delirious", or "unconscious" a few times during the course of my illness. One time i distinctly remember feeling/experiencing being enormous(so much so that i was bigger than my room and and the rest), while also being so small that i had no words to express how small i felt. It was such a powerful experience that i still recall it. Not vividly but i remember it as being something bizarre, strange, so extraordinary. Was it just a fever induced thing? I ask in such detail coz you're also a doctor... Thanks

[@KaaLee8]

💜🪷🌈🙏🐢

[@priestbogomil]

You are hearing the “sound” in your ear without iTunes or someone’s music playing through a speaker right? If so, why do you and so many teachers TALK so much? So many gibberish on and on isn’t it? They gibberish but the SOUND is something other we cannot recognize without our efforts. It is strange.

[@kazuno1774]

Im half way through the video and im pretty sure i fell for the mind trap

[@Grateful_Acres]

🧡